Gene expression in peripheral blood leukocytes in young endurance athletes

Exercise is beneficial to human’s health, and many of the effects are mediated by changes in immune function. However, the mechanisms underpinning the immune-regulatory effect of exercise remain unclear. We used microarrays to assess the global gene expression in blood leukocytes in young endurance athletes and non-athlete controls, the differential gene expression between two groups was analzyed using bioinformatic methods and enriched biological processes and pathways were identified for up- and down-regulated genes in athletes. Twelve young endurance athletes and 11 age-, sex- and BMI-matched healthy non-athlete controls were included. A fasting blood sample was collected from each individual at rest. Blood leukocytes were extracted, and global gene expression profile was assessed using Affymetrix human gene 1.1 ST array. Group differences in the transcriptome were analyzed using powerful bioinformatic methods (Intensity-based Hierarchical Bayes method followed by a Logistic Regression-based gene set enrichment method).